Category Archives: Houston Astros

Almost everyone expected the Astros to make the postseason last year, but their starting pitching collapsed. Dallas Keuchel followed up his Cy Young award season in 2015 with a season that saw him lose more games than he won. The advanced metrics showed he was a little unlucky and was better than his ERA and win-loss record would suggest.

Houston decided to invest in some veteran talent this offseason. They signed guys with playoff experience like Carlos Beltran and Brian McCann. Will those signings payoff are they just getting in the way of a younger guy needing at-bats?

Could Carlos Correa or George Springer turn into potential MVP candidates?

The Baseball Writers’ Association of America revealed the results of their Hall of Fame vote this afternoon. Three former MLB players earned induction into this year’s Hall of Fame class.

Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines and Ivan Rodriguez received more than the 75% threshold to earn induction. Bagwell and Raines have been on the ballot for quite awhile, but Pudge earned his election on his first time on the ballot.

There were plenty of players that fell short of the 75% threshold and one player surprised most people by falling short of receiving 5% of the vote to stay on the ballot.

Houston has spent most of the last decade picking at the top of the MLB amateur draft. They made no apologies for taking this strategy. Houston was finally heralded for their decision when the Astros made their first postseason appearance since 2005.

The Astros are in a similar situation as the Chicago Cubs. They both have a roster full of young talent and still have strong farm systems. They have the extra benefit of trading some youth for established talent or they could always just sit on them and keep developing. It’s a decision both teams will struggle with as they contend.

Could Carlos Correa or George Springer turn into potential MVP candidates?

Before the season began, we wrote a team preview for each MLB team. We broke down all the new players, former players, possible fantasy sleepers and (most importantly) picked an over/under win total.

We’ve always done really well with our MLB Over/Unders in the past and we kicked ass in 2015.

We went 18-11-1 on the year. We hit on all the sleepers, but missed horribly on the Houston Astros (we thought they were still a year away). Vegas definitely cleaned house on the Angels and Nationals. I don’t know many who picked their under win totals.

We list all the teams and what their over/under win totals were at the beginning of the 2015 MLB season. See which ones we hit and missed on this year.

The Houston Astros made a bold move today by promoting top prospect shortstop Carlos Correa. The 20-year was selected #1 overall in the 2012 MLB Amateur Draft. He was drafted ahead of current MLB players Addison Russell, Joey Gallo and teammate Lance McCullers Jr.

Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow once said they were prepared to take their time in developing Correa, but that plan is difficult to do when your team is currently in the first place and your top prospect is killing it in the minors.

Correa is a big 6’4 shortstop that is expected to develop decent power. He has already hit ten homers in 246 minor league at-bats this season.

The Major League Baseball season is roughly two months old and underdogs have been on roll against the spread so far.

Underdogs (home and road) have won in 63% of games this year. It’s not unusual for underdogs to get off to a hot start, but I could see the streak continue well into July.

Minnesota, Houston and the New York Mets all currently have at least a share of their respective divisions. All three teams weren’t expected to contend for their divisions this year (although I predicted a possible Wild-Card spot for the Mets), so they have all helped the underdog winning percentage.

Will these teams hit a wall when they begin to be consistently favored against the spread?

Houston has spent the last few seasons at the bottom of the league in nearly every statistical category. They’ve just been marking time while their prospects made their way through their farm system. George Springer was one of this regime’s first blue chip prospects to be called up. He produced as advertised before getting injured.

The Astros have a long way to go to compete with the talented teams in the AL West. They could further prove that being patient and slowly building your team through the draft is the way to win in today’s game.

Could we see either Carlos Correa or Colin Moran in Houston this season?